Time Will Tell

Me at 17

Me at 41

Time flies when you're having fun.

That's what people say, right? What if time flies even if you're not having fun, or if you're just having an okay time? Does it fly even when life is terrible?

Yes, I believe it does.

Lately, I seem to have lost my voice. It feels like life is just happening to me, with very little participation on my part. Every day there is some new catastrophe or urgent matter that requires my immediate attention, and I find myself going through the motions just trying to keep up.

Has that ever happened to you?

No matter what is happening to us in our lives, time marches on. I have never been the person who wants to go back and relive my glory days because I believe my glory days are still being written. However, like everyone else, there are some days I would love to replay.

What I wouldn't give to go back and hold my babies and smell their sweet heads! (Why did I have to be so tired?)

I'd love to relive my way-too-quick wedding. (Do weddings actually last longer than 5 minutes?) 

Can I  breathe in my last first kiss? (Don't you wish you could know when it was the last one?) 

Talking to my grandpa again would be such a gift. (I still miss him.) 

Life is made up of so many breathtaking moments, but it's hard to know when those moments will arrive. Or what to do when we get there. So, we look back with fondness, nostalgia, and sometimes a little (or a lot) of regret.

The last year of my life has been crazy. There is no other word for it. Our little family has been dealing with some very personal issues, and then we moved into a totally new time zone. Everything about our lives has changed.

Well, almost everything.

Today I am celebrating 22 wonderful years with my dear husband. We met and began dating in college seventy eons ago when the world was still fresh with promise and mystery.

Some people didn't think we were right for one another. We were both so immature and young (I was 19, he was 21.) Some people had downright nasty things to say about our relationship. I'm sad to say that even after all this time I can still remember these things. I guess it's hard for some people to believe that you can meet and fall in love with your soul mate in a flash, but I knew almost from the beginning that he was the one for me.

You see time has a way of telling her secrets. Oh, it might take a while, but eventually, everyone else knows what you knew from the start. All of the nasty fades away, and all that is left is the love and the memories.

I think this was taken the Christmas before our engagement. Johnny has always had such a great sense of humor. He makes this otherwise quite serious girl laugh so often.

Neither one of us knew at this point in time, that I was already sick with my autoimmune disease. It would affect so much of our lives in the coming years. It didn't matter. We were happily married 5 years after we started dating. We also moved away from everyone that we knew and loved to start our new life together where John had just gotten his first job as a teacher.

Three years, and three miscarriages later, our first beautiful girl was born. We never knew how painful those first three years of marriage would be, never knew that my body was fighting itself for survival. We thank God for this girl and hope that the worst of it is over, but sadly, another miscarriage happened before we were blessed with this girl.

After daughter number 2, we are done with growing our family. Together these girls bring us more joy and heartbreak than we ever knew existed. They become our lives, and time marches on. 

I look at these photos of myself and my love, and I wonder about the woman in them. It's funny how you can simultaneously be both the photo and yourself. In retrospect, I can see so much life in these pictures, so much love. I also see a much darker picture of my illness. 

One of my biggest livelong struggles has been my weight. Since I started to become ill while still in high school, I never realized that there could be a reason for this struggle. I just thought it was how my body was changing as I aged. I never knew that an autoimmune disease could be responsible for my arthritis, my gallstones, my depression and anxiety, my miscarriages, my weight gain, my decreasing mental abilities, my hysterectomy, or my loss of zeal for life.  

When I look at these photos now, they tell a different story. This last photo was taken in August on my 17th wedding anniversary. This man standing beside me? He's my rock. He's never wavered in his commitment to me or our family, even when my illness was at my worst.

I look back through these photos and see a beautiful love story, but I also see a life well lived.  I can see the shadow of illness, but I also see the glow of grace. It's amazing how time has a way of helping us to see the complete story and the story yet unwritten. What an amazing dichotomy! 

So many people are struggling to make it through the next day, the next week, the next month. I get it. Truly. My little march down memory lane has brought me some newfound perspective, though.

Life is never what you expect it to be.

The last year of my life has been so full of ups and downs, I have found myself lost in the whirlwind of time. I have caught myself coming and going to get everything that I thought was important done so I could move on to the next important thing.

I have come to realize that it is all a mirage.

We struggle to get to the next thing and realize once we get there that something else is waiting just up ahead. If we're not careful, we can spend our whole lives always struggling to make it to the next big thing while never realizing that it's the journey that counts the most. 

Looking back, we remember the journey of life and very few moments.

I think all mothers can remember their babies, but very few of us remember specific nights the baby cried all night. We all remember being teenagers, but few of us remember every single time we were mortified beyond belief. Most of us remember being in love, but few of us remember all the arguments along the way. 

Time has a way of making us forget the specifics and remember the journey. 

Right now, I can't remember every single Keto or not Keto thing I've eaten for the last 10 months, but I remember feeling better. I can't remember every bad thing that happened on our journey to our new home, but I remember how exciting it was. I can't remember every little thing from the last year, but I remember joy.

 I remember life. 

Will this part of my life be like so many others, just a moment to remember, or something transformational for my journey?

Like so many other moments, only time will tell.